Teach Us to Number Our Days

In the last post on New Year’s Day, I asked the question, “Is it wise to mark the passing of time?” I made a Biblical argument for what time is and where it comes from, and we look at how both God and man relate to time.

We will continue with this theme by focusing on one particular passage that touches on many of the points we discussed previously. The 90th Psalm paints a vivid picture of God’s glory and man’s human frailty as seen through the lens of the passage of time. This Psalm may be familiar to you. Historically it has often been read on the occasion of a death or funeral for as the commentator Derek Kidner puts it this Psalm, “is a rehearsal of the facts of life and death.”

A Brief Theology of Time

For the most part, I confess, I’ve never given much emphasis to the celebration of the New Year. Growing up, Christmas was the main event, and New Years just served to signal the end of the Christmas break and the impending return to school. As I’ve gotten older, New Years is always something of an after thought. I don’t watch football, I don’t participate in wild parties or drunken revelry, I don’t usually even stay up till midnight. Given the option I go to bed at the same time as normal, much to the chagrin of the teenager in our house. I usually mutter something about the new year coming wither I’m awake or asleep before heading off to bed.

After all what is the big deal? It is easy to see the significance of celebrating the incarnation—God entering into his own creation by taking on human flesh and a human nature in order to bring about the salvation of his people. By contrast, what is the passing of another year? It just seems like a non-event.

Why are we as humans so interested in marking the passage of time. Is it beneficial to do so, and more importantly is it Biblical? What does Scripture have to say about time and our interaction with it? Is it wise for us as believers to mark the passing of years? That is what I hope to consider this article.